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X-Ray Spex (And Le Tigre, and other girly stuff with attitude)

Started by Neil, December 03, 2005, 02:43:15 PM

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Neil

I do remember some of us discussing this rather ace punk band a long time ago.  Well, I was listening to Abbie's last.fm station earlier and a Le Tigre song came up that made me think of Poly Styrene and co for the first time in far too long.  Actually, my knowledge of Le Tigre pretty much begins and ends with Hot Topic and a handful of other tracks, so maybe I should give them a more thorough checking out.  

X-Ray Spex, though.  Eh?  I remember buying Germ Free Adolescents when I was a teenager and falling in love with it.

"Oh bondage, up yours!"

Man, I've got to dig that album out, I can remember how fiercely catchy Warrior In Woolworths is. The sort of track that makes you want to bounce around the room.

splattermac

Deceptacon is the le Tigre song, Hot Topic plays second fiddle, although it is one of my faves.

I saw them live last year and it was pretty good but their support act 'gravy train' were so lewd and vigorous that I think they stole the show. The dancing only really started when the played deceptacon at the end and I nearly got steamrollered by little barrel like girls.

Funny you should mention Polly because I've been listening to a cheeky Brighton band called 'help she can't swim' for a good part of the year and some of the lyrics and delivery floating out reminds me of her and other squawky punk bints. With an LP called 'Fashionista Super Dance Troupe' I think you can safely say you'd hate it. I think it's bloody marvelous but I always play it with another couple of their tracks from their singles because the LP is only 25mins long.

opps that was a bit street-team of me, would you like to sign up for the mailing list? ;)

susie

I don't know much about Le Tigre, but I loved Bikini Kill. I have recently got a couple of their bootlegs from dimeadozen (god, I love that site), which are pretty good.

I watched the Don Letts Punk documentary last night which had some great old footage in, and some great interviews with Poly Styrene. I can't believe how much she now looks like a slimmer version of my old German Teacher. If only I knew that back then!

Neil

Is she still in the Hare Krishna's?  Can I download that documentary somewhere, or is it commerically available?  Hmm, I tried encoding some episodes of Revolver for Tom Hedonist a couple of years back, I wonder if I did the one with  Xray Spex.  That disc is likely in one of the piles in front of me, I'll have a look and see if I can get it chopped out.

splattermac

it's out on sale at the moment, double DVD. A long named whore started a thread about it. Found it http://chilled.cream.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=345849

Neil

Ta!  Ah yeah, I read that but thought it was only about a cinema release or something.  Was it Le Tigre who also did one of those tracks where they just read out a list of influences?  I can vaguely recall a few of those over the years.

Melth

The first Le Tigre album is fantastic, not a bad song on it . I think it's been diminishing returns for them since, mind. There's a limit to which you can push the drum-machine / sloganeering brief and they hit it fairly early on. I ended up taking "This Island" back to the shop - too slick, too monotonous.

I bought "Germ-Free Adolescents" (+ assorted live tracks) and am absolutely smitten with it. Did Poly Styrene go on to do anything else musically? Any further recommendations from that genre, anyone?

Neil

She quit the band, and released a solo album shortly thereafter.  Then she dropped out of music pretty much altogether and joined the Hare Krishna's!  There was a come-back record with X-Ray Spex, although nowadays she seems to be thoroughly disgusted with punk because of the anti-religious stuff.  

If it's girly stuff you want then you can't go far wrong with Nina Hagen and The Slits, really.  I particularly like the former, she's German though so hardly any of her stuff is in English.  An obvious one would be Siouxsie And The Banshees.

klaatu!

Quote from: "Neil"Was it Le Tigre who also did one of those tracks where they just read out a list of influences?  I can vaguely recall a few of those over the years.

They do that on Hot Topic. It's an interesting list too. I like the fact that I haven't heard of half the people they cite as influences, it makes such a change from bland, obvious influence lists spewed out by indie bands and the likes. The first time I heard Hot Topic, I had no idea who David Wojnarowicz was. I thought they said David Aaronovitch, the Guardian columnist, and I started questioning whether he was a camp/feminist icon of some sorts...

splattermac

Isn't there another similar track citing feminist activists etc? I wonder if it's on the new one 'this island', like Melth said it was/is a pretty poor album. When me and blue jammer were in Berlin we were drinking in Nina Hagen territory – Prenzlauer (East Berlin). I much preferred it to the Western and Central areas. Grafitti everywhere and suspicious looking bullet holes in quite a few walls :/ Fantastic eye fodder though.

lazyhour

When I saw Le Tigre live (in the late 90s/early 00s, maybe), one of the gig organisers handed out flyers listing all of the people mentioned in Hot Topic, and what they were or what they did.  Which I thought was really sweet.  Great gig, too.

humanleech

For the experts and myth dispellers on this board: According to heresay at the time Germ free Adolescents was a hit, Poly Styrene was domiciled in a psychiatric hospital due to some matter involving aliens from outer space. Hearsay further had it that she was allowed out to do her Top of the Pops recording and then returned to the hospital.

Can anyone shed any light on this matter please as it's been nagging at the me for the last 25 years.

Paaaaul

Huggy Bear - Her Jazz

although it's technically Boys/Girls with attitude

Their joint album with Bikini Kill is well worth anybody's pennies.

Edit - I've got a copy of a Huggy Bear album that was limited to 57 copies. Has there ever been a more limited run of an album ever?!

susie

Strange number, too!

You're not wrong about that record. In fact the Huggy Bear side is probably better than the Bikini Kill side. There was all kinds of weirdness out at that time. I have an interesting record by a band called Blood Sausage, who I think were involved with Huggy Bear, called Happy Little Bullshit Boy. Hmm, I might mp3 some vinyl tonight.

Paaaaul

I *think* Blood Sausage was two of the grrrls from Huggy Bear and someone from Tindersticks, though I could be wrong. Wiiija put out loads of ace 7"s and EPs in those days, Silverfish included, who deserve a mention in this thread.

Johnny Yesno

I wish I'd bought that Boss Hogg album with the singer in the nuddie on the cover. I can't remember the name of it but it was a damn fine album. Googling leads me to think it was called White Out because the background behind the nuddie singer was completely white. Apparently Bob Bert out of Sonic Youth and (the?) Jon Spencer were in Boss Hogg.

On the subject of nuddie girl singers I'm still partial to a bit of Bow Wow Wow.